Note 308 — BOOK III.

“There seems to have been a fabulous story current during the twelfth century, that Harold escaped from the battle of Hastings. Giraldus Cambrensis asserts, that it was believed Harold had fled from the battle-field, pierced with many wounds, and with the loss of his left eye; and that he ended his days piously and virtuously, as an anchorite, at Chester. Both Knighton and Brompton quote this story. W. Pictaviensis says, that William refused the body to his mother, who offered its weight in gold for it, ordering it to be buried on the sea-coast. In the Harleian MS. 3776, before referred to, Girth, Harold’s brother, is said to have escaped alive: he is represented, in his interview with Henry II. to have spoken mysteriously respecting Harold, and to have declared that the body of that prince was not at Waltham. Sir H. Ellis, quoting this MS., justly observes, that the whole was, probably, the fabrication of one of the secular canons, who were ejected at the re-foundation of Waltham Abbey in 1177.”—Hardy.